Black Lips - Satan’s Graffiti Or God’s Art? album review

Sludgy seventh from the wang-waggling Atlantans

Nothing says ‘we’ve matured beyond our early antics of setting fire to our guitars and almost getting arrested in India for todgers-out onstage “homosexual acts” more than making a record with the offal-chucking bloke who got thrown out of Fat White Family for being too unpredictable. Yes, shaking off their long-standing rep for onstage behaviour that’d have a disgusted GG Allin demanding a refund, Atlanta garage rockers Black Lips retreated to Sean Lennon’s studio compound to make their seventh album featuring FWF’s Saul Adamczewski. And While Wayne, Lucid Nightmare and the 50s mirrorball romance of Crystal Night maintain the crisp retro spark of old, the rest of this somewhat inspired 55-minute mess smacks of the Fat Whites’ sticky-trousered narco-country. Occidental Front, WeKnow and Can’t Hold On are compulsive Mexarcana sludgefeasts seemingly performed by The Magnificently Pissed Seven and the likes of Come Ride With Me, Interlude Elektrik Spiderwebz and Got Me All Alone are heavy-limbed psych blues and country drawls that can barely lift their eyelids, let alone waggle their dongs about. There’s even a wasted cover of It Won’t Be Long that sounds like The Beatles’ last song of a 17-hour benzedrine set in Hamburg Sveatkeller. Plus Yoko’s on here somewhere.